Monday, December 5

Obviously, if you have seen Virtual Leader, you know I am a strong believer in real-time interfaces for educational simulations. Like computer games, they tap emotions, give users a sense of timing, and provide the opportunity for very rich interactions. Unlike computer games, however, they must facilitate the transfer of skills and perspectives from the artificial environment to a real environment.

I find this concept of "making interfaces part of the learning" the most difficult to convey when working with clients, and I am guessing others here have the same problem. I hope this helps.

The first level question from simulation designers to a subject matter expert is typically:

What are common problems novices make? What are common problems experts make?

But to that, I have started asking another pair, a second level pair, of questions:

When is doing the same thing a little harder or a little softer, or a little earlier or a little later, make all the difference between success and failure?

The concept that the subject matter experts fill in for "thing" becomes a critical component of the interface.

Just a few examples I recently heard. If it is...

"bring one of the two arguing people outside the room to let them cool off" or

"send flowers" or

"stop the process to review safety issues" or

"set up a focus group to get customer feedback" or

"bring in higher levels of management" or

"give our bonuses" or

"go out with the customer to build the relationship" or

"make an acquisition" or

"speed up the presentation" or

"have the security team spend more time surveying the area with the broken window"

...then those options had better be possible through the interface, and not just as a binary option (i.e. press the button), but also as an analog option (i.e. hold down longer for more impact).

This is all part of the new language of interactivity, something I hope will move from archaic today to mainstream within a few years.

6 comments:

I curious about your opinion on a raging argument that's going on these days.

You said "Like computer games, they tap emotions, give users a sense of timing, and provide the opportunity for very rich interactions. Unlike computer games, however, they must facilitate the transfer of skills and perspectives from the artificial environment to a real environment."

Why unline computer games? Do computer games - especially the violent ones - transfer skills and perspectives from the artificial environment to a real environment?

If not, then why does a sim work in an educational sense but NOT a shoot 'em up computer game. Is there an inherent differenbr between a computer game as a form and a sim (content aside)? If one can transfer skills, why not the other? And if the violent compter game does not transfer skills, then how can the sim do it?

Playing chess does not teach you how to kill kings, but it does teach you some general strategy (i.e. positioning is critical, sometimes you must sacrifice a pawn for a rook, situations can turn around very quickly).

Like chess, computer games teach a lot of high level "systems" concepts, including resource allocation, power relationships (rocks, papers, scissors), use of time; but they are not built (nor have they evolved serendipitously) to facilitate the transfer skills to the outside world.

This transferability of skills is not a "freebie." You don't get it, even if you do everything else right. You have to build it deliberately into the interface of the experience.

Back to your original post Clark, the laundry list of relevent possibilities seems so vast as to be impossible to scale and every sim -- if it meets the standards you point to -- becomes a vastly expensive custom event whereby, it seems the financial leverage is lost. Do the relevent options become consistent and predictable over a large enough set of applications allowing for more leverage? Or is the point not that the sim is ultimately less expensive, but rather more effective than instructor-led delivery?

IV: Cyclical content requires such significant customization to a specific audience that it decreases the scalability of a formal learning experience.

I don't get that sense at all. I would use for one, self-serving data point that Virtual Leader has been translated into Japanese, Korean, and Chinese, all of the underlying logic has stayed the same, and the effectiveness as measured in both 360's and group productivity is just as powerful.

I believe with the last generation of training and HR that there is an addiction to customized mediocrity. I am seeing the next generation embracing a model closer to Doctor/pharmaceutical. Powerful, generic content implemented well by a smart practioner produces the best of both worlds. Maybe!

Subscribe To

Follow by Email

About the LC Blog

The LC Blog is a community feature that Learning Circuits launched in 2002. The main feature of the LC Blog is its Question of the Month, which hones in on a priority topic facing learning professionals. Anyone--and everyone--can contribute to the LC Blog.

Search This Blog

Loading...

About Learning Circuits

ASTD launched Learning Circuits in January 2000. Its goal was to promote and aid the use of e-learning, creating a body of knowledge about how to use technology efficiently and effectively for learning. There are nearly 800 articles currently on the website.

About ASTD

ASTD (American Society for Training & Development) is the world’s largest association dedicated to workplace learning and performance professionals. ASTD is dedicated to providing resources to practitioners working the field of e-learning. ASTD delivers the free webzine Learning Circuits, the ASTD TechKnowledge Conference & Exposition; two educational certificate programs on e-learning design; and numerous books and Infolines.